Brooke and Ian Hanson transformed a poky California cabin into a paragon of rustic sophistication by making a virtue of the home's seemingly dated quirks.

600 Square Feet of Thrifty Style

600 Square Feet of Thrifty Style

Plenty of folks comb Craigslist in search of lawn mowers and coffee tables—but a whole house? That's how Brooke and Ian Hanson discovered their tiny Northern California rental, built in the 1970s and bearing all the telltale signs of the era. Instead of shying away from the cabin's retro wood paneling, Ian, a photographer, and Brooke, an art director for Restoration Hardware, saw potential in the knotty planks—envisioning a rustic hideaway for two. "It felt like a cozy little treehouse in a dreamy, woodsy setting," Brooke recalls.

Living Room

Living Room

The couple's first step: stripping back all the dated elements that cast those walls in a bad light. They jettisoned the sad mini-blinds in favor of breezy linen panels that don't impede their views of the acacia trees, then swapped the dusty, globe-shaped fixtures for sleek, $20 pendants from Ikea. The landlord paid to replace the shag carpet with faux-wood flooring (that Ian deems "somewhat convincing"). He also gave the pair permission to paint the kitchen's dingy laminate counters red. Desperate times, the Hansons realized, demand bold color—in small doses, anyway. Everywhere else, they agreed on a palette of soft neutrals, to avoid cluttering the pint-size place with visual noise.

Feathers, $0:Brooke simply thumbtacked feathers to the wall.

Artwork, $5 each:The Hansons hunt for frames at garage sales, then fill them with ferns and flowers from the woods.